With the development and wide spread use of the Internet, advertising using the Internet is being spotlighted as a new advertising means. Advertising using the Internet includes providing advertisements through the enterprises' homepages, providing advertisements in the form of banners on web sites, and displaying advertisements on a specific location of an electronic map based on the Geographic Information System (GIS).
The GIS is a system that collects, stores, analyzes and processes geographical data for application to geographic-related fields (e.g., roads, traffics, telecommunication, gas, water pipes, water resources, forest resources, geological soils, etc.). An electronic map refers to a map that is provided by collecting and processing ground data regarding roads and facilities, and digitally transforming the data. An electronic map may be implemented by software configured to transform paper maps made through measurement into digital data. Alternatively, the electronic map may be created by digital information obtained from GPS receivers or satellite pictures. Typically, for the electronic maps to be provided through the Internet, map information should be hierarchically organized according to their scales for storage in an electronic map database. For example, map information may be organized such that a higher level of map information having higher scales is hierarchically linked to a lower level of map information having lower scales. Such an organization of map information may allow a suitable level of map information to be provided and displayed on a user's terminal in response to the user's requests.
Advertisers may provide their advertisements to consumers with location information by registering and displaying advertisements on a predetermined location of an electronic map provided through the Internet. The advertisement contents, which are displayed on the predetermined location of the electronic map, may include, for example, text advertisements of building name/firm name, images or symbol advertisements, animation advertisements such as animation GIF or Flash, voice advertisements, moving picture advertisements, and URL information that allows advertisers to move to a website.
The advertisements, which consist of texts only, are not overlapped on the electronic map since the text advertisements are disclosed sequentially. The advertisements consisting of images or the like may be overlapped depending on the size and location of the advertisements. In other words, if an advertisement is registered in a predetermined location of an electronic map and other advertisements are also registered in such predetermined or close locations, the advertisements may be overlapped with each other. Thus, the effect of advertisements may decrease.